Tom Harkin rips 'devil's deal' on payroll tax

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) unleashed fury at President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats over the deal to extend the payroll tax holiday, ripping the agreement apart as a “devil’s deal.”

Among Harkin’s litany of problems with the bill: It takes funds away from Social Security. The payroll tax cut is not paid for, compounding the nation’s debt. And it cuts billions from a health care program dear to his heart.

“I never thought I would live to see the day when a Democratic president and a Democratic vice president would agree to put Social Security in this kind of jeopardy,” Harkin said on the Senate floor Thursday evening. “Never did I imagine a Democratic president beginning the unraveling of Social Security.”

“It’s a devil’s deal,” he later added. “It’s a bad deal. There are better ways to accomplish these goals.”

Harkin, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, took particular aim at one component: that will slash about $5 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund - a program created by the health care law that Harkin has championed.

On the Senate floor, he listed several health organizations that opposed reducing the funds and called the cuts “outrageous and unacceptable.”

Harkin also raised concerns that lawmakers could continually extend the payroll tax cut – which is set to expire at the end of this year under the agreement – because it is not paid for. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has voiced similar worries.

The 2 percent payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans slows the revenue stream into the Social Security trust fund, so money from the general treasury is transferred to the trust fund to refill those coffers. Harkin argued the tax cut should have been paid for with additional revenue sources.

“I choose my words carefully,” Harkin said. “Make no mistake about it, American people, make no mistake about it. This is the beginning of the end of the sanctity of Social Security.”